


Ebb and Flow

by Leticheecopae



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bittersweet, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Time, Just a really kinda cute and sad moment, Kisses, mentions of failed relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 04:44:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13674516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leticheecopae/pseuds/Leticheecopae
Summary: They never did get to talk much outside the bubbles. A chat here or there, a glance across the meteor, but there had never been anything of substance. Now, when substance is meaningless, and all there is to do is talk, Nepeta and Eridan find more common ground than they expected.





	Ebb and Flow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TiniBopper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiniBopper/gifts).



> A request I've had fun with, but also struggled with, as I rarely write Nepeta. I did my damndest though, and I am still happy with how this turned out. Even more important, the requester is! Otherwise y'all wouldn't get to see this. 
> 
> Double yay getting to post this for Valentines. Enjoy!

The ocean comes right up to the cave, and Nepeta would believe that this is Eridan’s bubble and his only if not for the paintings behind her. Some are faded, some smeared, but the shipping wall is mostly intact and enough of a reminder that yes; this was her home and now it is empty. 

“You and Kar?” he asks as he walks along the wall. “And me and...oh.” 

Nepeta doesn’t have to look; she knows who she put red in his quadrant. It would be comical if Gamzee hadn’t been the one to kill her. 

“Guess you got the black right, at least,” he grumbles. “Even if it was one-sided; yellow-blooded bastard.” The last bit is more murmured than anything; an afterthought in a world that is nothing but.

“Check the other wall,” she replies while dipping a bare foot into the sea. There is no blending; water up to stone. She feels a little cheated that there’s no sand. She never did get to see sand; at least not up close. Sometimes she could see the ocean from Equius’ cave on clear nights. It was like the sky was bleeding down into the world, reflecting the dark and light of the moon. The sand was always a white ribbon, tangled along the edge.

“Equius?” 

Nepeta chuckles at his surprise.

“Really?”

“He would nefur admit it, but he always spoke highly of you, and not just beclaws of your blood.” 

Eridan cocks his head at the wall. “Huh...wwell I wwish he wwould havve said somethin.” 

“We both know he nefur would have. ‘Lowbloods nefur make the furst pass’.” She does her best to mimic Equius’ stern voice, but it comes out sounding more mocking than mimicking, and she lowers her head. “Hypocrite.” She sways her foot in the water.

“Wwhy do you say that?”

“Beclawse, I was the one who admitted pale furst.” She kicks and watches a spray of water come up, some blowing back against her in a cool splatter. “He always did say one thing and mean the other.”

“Have you, umm…” Eridan trails off behind her. The cave feels familiar, like the hull of his ship, dark and cool, though there is little to no humidity. His fins flick, trying to spread the moisture from his gils outward. Not that it’s needed; there is no want for humidity when dead. He could sit in the middle of a desert, feel the sun beat down on him, the wind rage, and his body would never change. Even the scar over his belly refuses to heal fully, constantly puffy and violet. He thinks about asking Nepeta why her arm never seems to lay right, even though it is seemingly whole.

Even though the others may not believe it, he does have enough tact not to ask.

“Found him? No.” She sighs. “I’ve tried to, but evfury time I think I’m close, I miss him by a whisker. I feel like we’re playing cat and mouse.”

“Him chasing you and you chasing him?” Eridan comes to sit near her, his shoes dissolving with a thought. His body may not change, but clothing is just about as transient as a half-remembered daydream; fitting the place but not always what the wearer may want.

“Something like that.” She gives a gentle smile to the water, a sad one, and Eridan wonders if maybe he never paid her enough mind. There was that time during the game, but he can’t think of anyone he didn’t ask out then. But before that, when they were all still happily on the same damn planet and not floating through space, it could have been worth a shot.

 _Definitely,_ he confirms as she swings her foot beneath the water; he tail flicking ripples against the stone of her cave. Despite the heaviness around them, he can feel something light inside her; something waiting to pounce and play and it reminds him very much of Feferi. 

Maybe she would have listened to him; given as much as he gave. She did for Equius, that's for sure.

“Guess we were the pales only, huh?” he asks, trying to find something to talk about. 

Nepeta snorts. _’You couldn’t even keep yours,’_ she thinks to herself, but she keeps it inside her own head. She may have never have had much interaction with Eridan, may not know what had really gone on between him and Feferi that lead to him being discarded like a used scratching post, but she doubts it was all his fault. Feferi was nice, she was, but she was also selfish. She may not have meant it or realized it, but she used him more than even Vriska, and with a smile. If his ancestor was the Orphaner, then Eridan is an Orphanage. She had met plenty that had lost a lusus to him and all for the sake of Gl'bgolyb and Feferi. And then those orphaned would...well…

“You at least had a spade fur a while.”

Eridan jerks in surprise. “Oh, wwell yes. Not that it lasted long.” He feels the pout and does little to stop it. He’s dead, who cares about looking cool or whatever anymore. Still, he manages to keep it to only a mild pout. 

“I don’t know if it makes you feel any better, but she was using you fur free food.”

Eridan side-eyes her. “Wwhat?” Nepeta goes to speak, and he stops her. “Oh, you mean the orphaned trolls...yeah. I figured that out.” He pulls his cape around him, head resting on one knee while his other leg hangs in the water. 

“I didn’t mean anything by it. She used evfury one.” Nepeta turns to stare out like Eridan is, and if she bumps him a little, well that’s okay. “At least you weren’t one of the maimed.”

“She did have a bad habit of that, didn’t she," he grumbles. "There wwere, wwhat, three in our group?”

“Four.” Nepeta curls up this time, her arms tight around her knees as her damp toes curl against the eroded floor of her cave.

“Who was the fourth?”

Nepeta looks up at him and then back at the ocean. “My tail is fur more than show.”

Eridan looks at her and then down at the twitching blue tail. “Wwait...wwhat?”

He is surprised when Nepeta’s coat all but vanishes; the black tank beneath rolled up over a mass of ugly scars on her lower back. Just looking at them makes him wince.

“Did..did she?” he lets the question drift off.

“I was hunting. She pounced on me during a fight, made me weak as a kitten against what should have been an easy kill.” She frowns. “Pounce took me to Equius. He saved the nerves, but my bones were clawed to ribbons.”

“So he replaced them wwith...that?” Eridan motions towards the tail, unsure if he would be allowed to touch or not. It looks soft, almost organic, but the metal bolting into her lower back tells him it is anything but.

“Purrfect, isn’t it.” She waves it behind her. “Like a mewtation; one-hundred purrcent apart of me.”

Eridan nods. 

Nepeta pulls her shirt back down. “I always pawed him to show off his work, but he nefur did. He showed people the robots, but it was the delicate stuff he should have had had more pride in. Like my tail, or Vrisker’s arm.” She looks up at him with a little smile. “He had plans to make efureything in Tavros’s legs anatomically correct, did you know that? Organs, bluge, nook, nerves; everything he lost. He wanted him to be as whole as pawsible.”

“Odd for someone wwho had an issue breaking things,” Eridan mused, he quickly wished he hadn’t said it. Nepeta turns away from him, and her smile falls.

He chews at his lip, sharp teeth worrying the thick skin.

“S-”

“Why do you do that?”

“Huh?”

“Cut people down?” She looks up at him. “You’re already so much higher than efuryone, why cut them down?”

“Wwell exactly, it’s my blood right, wwhy shouldn’t I?” he snaps before he can help it. He turns from her, cheeks blaring as he pulls his cape tighter around him. 

He hears a sigh off to the side, nothing follows. Around him, Eridan feels the cave start to go fuzzy. He glances at the walls and watches the images start to fade, the smell of pine turning to salt. The water begins to recede, and he quickly looks over at Nepeta. She has begun to fade.

“It’s the only wway I feel higher,” he mutters finally.

“Huh?” She looks over at him, her skin becoming solid. 

“Equius could build, you could hunt, Vris wwas practically unbeatable and even Sol wwas able to do things I could nevver wwish to accomplish; don’t tell him that,” he adds quickly. Nepeta gives him a small nod, her body as solid as the dream bubble can make it. “All I could do wwas, wwell, kill, and anyone can do that. And every time I did it for her, no one seemed to care. They got angry, they threw barbs at me, so I threww them back, and at some point, I just started to throww ‘em first.” He flicks a rock out of the cave and into the ocean. It sinks down into the deep blue and disappears in moments. 

“She should have thanked you more,” Nepeta says after a pause. 

“Wwhat?” He pauses mid-flick.

“Fefuri, she should have thanked you. Without you, I’m sure the great glub would have killed me sweeps ago.” 

“You think so?”

Nepeta shrugs. “I mean, I’m not happy about what you did, but it served a purrpose. You did something Fefuri should have been doing, but she couldn’t find the strength to do it.” She turns towards him again, a small smile on her face. “You deserved a thank you from that at least her.”

Eridan’s heart does a little flutter as he looks at her before quickly looking away. He’s not sure what to say as his eyes wander over the cave. He looks for anything to distract him before his eyes fall upon her and a heart.

“Did you ever tell him? Kar, I mean.” 

It’s her turn to blush it seems as she turns from him. For a moment, he thinks he may have screwed up, but she doesn’t fade.

“I...tried,” she finally murmurs. “It nefur felt like the right time. Too much happening, not enough words, and showing was nefur something I was good at. I tried bringing him a kill once.” She smiles gently. “He appreciated it, but I don’t know if me being cofurred in blood made a good impurression.” 

“I think he told me about that,” Eridan shifts to face her more, “He wwas close to running out of rations, and you came to his rescue.”

“Really?” She looks at him in surprise. 

“You mean he didn’t tell you?”

She shakes her head. “No, Karkitty just said he was hungry.”

“And your response was to go out and kill him something?”

Nepeta feels herself blush, and she turns away to try and hide it at least some. “It was stupid, wasn’t it.”

“Howw is trying to feed the one you’re red for stupid?”

Her head whips up hard enough that she feels the muscles ache. Eridan is looking at her with such sincerity that she can’t help but smile. It is bittersweet, and there may be warmth in her eyes, but it holds, because he’s right. That’s all she wanted to do back then, to feed the troll she was red for.

“You can be really sweet, Ampurra. Thank you.”

She doesn’t expect the smile to be met with a kiss. And awkward, cool, fumbled kiss. Nepeta skitters back before she can think on it, eyes wide as Eridan looks at her with what must be a matching startled expression.

“I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’ havve—” he quickly looks out at the sea, his cheeks bright and his fins flared wide. 

“I just,” his eyes squeeze shut. “Howw else am supposed to react? I can’t remember the last time someone said anythin nice to me. A thank you, a good job. It’s like those wwere meant for evverybody but me. Then here you are, sayin somethin so swweet and all I could think about wwas how cut you look wwhen you smile and I wwent and fucked it up doin that.” He pushes his knuckles into his face, the rings on his fingers biting into his skin. “No wwonder evveryone left me.”

The rings help him focus, to come down, but that isn’t necessarily the best thing right now. His heart, or the ghost of his heart at least, is beating faster than he can ever remember it going. He hadn’t meant it, or, well, he had; but not to do it so suddenly! It had just happened! He had felt so light and happy, like foam on the waves, and now he is nothing but a grisly wreck on the seafloor.

“I-It’s okay.” 

His neck snaps upwards, his eyes staring at Nepeta who has a thin blush of olive in her cheeks. 

“Really?”

“Well, a little warning would have been mice, but I don’t mind.” 

Even if the heartbeat is an afterthought, it might as well be the tide crashing into the shore. 

“Evven though it’s me?”

The look she gives him is so pitying, even with her blank eyes, that it alone brings tears to his. 

“Your not all bad, Eridan,” she says as she reaches out and grabs one of his hands, holding it tight. “You’re a little meowthy, definitely rough around the whiskers, but when you aren’t trying to be a violet blood, you're pretty okay.” She squeezes. “I like the you without all the spectrum litter mixed in.”

“You do?” Her hand is so warm, and he wonders if this is how she felt in life. Were low-bloods always this warm? He can’t remember. All of the Lussi he had killed, and yet he can’t remember ever interacting with their troll wards, except maybe to throw them to the wayside and take their caregiver's corpses to the bottom of the sea. He wasn't dumb enough to flirt with those he made into orphans.

“As long as you can furget about being royal or whatefur for a little while, then yes.”

She holds his hand tight and prays she isn’t making a mistake. Even if she is, who really cares? She’s dead, it’s not like he can do much to her anyway, and there is enough curiosity in her that she’s okay with a second death over it. Well, maybe not that far, but she’s willing to give this little ember of pink flame a chance. It winks red when Eridan blushes so dark his cheeks almost look black. She feels like there was a time before he started the killing —before he and Feferi became moirails— when she had spoken to him. She’s not sure, it may not be a real memory, but she thinks it might be. 

A laughing, silly sea dweller with a belief in all things odd that talked about hunting in the ocean with the same vim and vigor she had on land. The same quirk, for sure, maybe the same name, but it had only been for a short time. It had been waylaid by tides of blue, both cerulean and royal, fields of teal, and expanses of brown. The violet had trickled away, left to nothing and she never did hunt for it.

“Would you like to try again?” she asks him. Her cheeks are burning so bright he thinks they might pop.

“Are you really lettin me?” 

Nepeta nods and Eridan isn’t about to say no to his first real invitation. He again tries with a little too much enthusiasm, almost knocking her backward. Their teeth click, he tastes a tinge of sweet copper, but she doesn’t pull away. Instead, her hands grab at the shoulders of his cloak to keep herself steady. 

He doesn’t taste fishy like she thought he might, maybe a little salty, but not necessarily in a bad way. It’s almost like how the mountain air always tasted crisp, or how the forest winds held a mugginess of pollen on hot days. He tries to bring his tongue into the mix too quickly, though, and she does pull away.

“Wwhat did I do?” his eyes are huge again.

“We don’t have to furry silly,” she tells him. 

His cheeks go dark with violet, and she notices a small constellation of fluorescent freckles glowing on the side of his neck. 

“I knoww that, I’m just—”

“Can I try?”

That seems to startle him almost more than being told he can kiss her, and Nepeta takes the slightly gap-mouthed look of surprise as a yes.

She doesn’t really have that much experience, maybe a few pale kisses between here and Equius when talking in piles, but that’s about it. There had been an attempt once with Karkat, a failed one, where she had presented a cheek and got a pap from a warm hand. Even if it hadn’t been what she wanted, she had still smiled. The memory of pale kisses, though, they’re a jumping off point. Carefully, she slides her hands just under the gills of his throat and pulls him down; holding just tight enough to keep him from trying to rush it. She slots her mouth against his, a gentle brush, and feels his gills flare before dropping and relaxing; brushing her knuckles. 

It spurs her as the next one is a little more pressure, than more of a glide, and soon his mouth is working with hers. She not sure when his hand found her waist, but she doesn’t mind it as he settles in closer and wraps his arm around her. He pulls her down slowly, and she chases after, a giggle on her lips as they lay down in the cave. There is something on the floor, soft and almost as fine as dust. Nepeta realizes that it must be sand.

His cape becomes a blanket beneath them as Nepeta finds a way to settle halfway on him, her chest balanced on his.

“You’re heavvier than you look,” he murmurs. She bleps her tongue out at him. “In a good wway!” he adds quickly. “It’s all muscle, I can tell.” 

“Relly?” 

He nods because he can. Feferi was always one for cuddles —when she needed them— and he can tell the difference. Her thick warmth was a weight that would dip and dimple against him, where Nepeta’s skin barely gives as she lays on him. Instead, his skin is what dimples, though not like Feferi's. He never could dive down as deep as Feferi could without being chilled.

“I like it,” he says as he pushes at her. “Solid. Like...like rock. It’s not goin to slip.”

She looks at him a little sideways before smiling at him gently. It does something funny to his chest, like when Feferi would look at him and smile, only this doesn’t hurt. It radiates warmth as she dips back down and kisses him again. This time, she presents her tongue, and he can tell what he did wrong. It traces his mouth gently. There is no persistence, no hurry, just an invitation to explore and learn about whatever this new experience is. 

Around them, the cave fills with gentle currents of warmth, and while no water is present, the air takes on the same attributes. Nepeta’s hair floats, her tail curls like a band of seaweed from the reef, and the sand beneath them shifts into the air to surround them like glittering stars. 

“Is this what the ocean is like?” she asks, voice slightly breathy. “I nefur got to go.”

“Yes,” he tells her as he tries to tuck hair behind her ear. It instead decides to play around his finger. “I wwish I could have taken you.”

“You have.” 

Eridan decides that the warmth on his cheeks is from a memory of rain on the sea, for both of their sakes.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me over on my [Tumblr](http://leticheecopae.tumblr.com) if you ever want to see more about my writing.


End file.
